The Ideological Significance of Afrocentricity in Intercultural Communication

At the Bellagio Conference on African Communication I advanced the position that there were three broad views of cultural reality: Afrocentric, Eurocentric, and Asiocentric (Asante, 1980a). Although it is possible to make more precise delineations, the basic tenets of my position have been enhanced by the work of Ruch and Anyanwu (1981). The philosopher Anyanwu argues correctly that Afrocentricity makes no sharp distinction between the ego and the world, subject and object. He says, "In the conflict between the self and the world, African culture makes the self the center of the world. Since the African world is centered on the self, every experience and reality itself is personal." Not only has my position been substantiated by other fields, it has become even more self-evident that the cultural differences we face in the world are rooted in different views of reality. The African world shares a common approach to phenomena.1 Even a term like "person" or "human" means something